Councilman Attacks Proposed Ward Map : Elections: Santa Ana’s Acosta says plan favors political Establishment’s ‘handpicked’ candidates.

Within minutes after the release of a proposed new ward map for Santa Ana, City Councilman John Acosta on Monday blasted the plan as “gerrymandering at its best” and accused City Hall’s political Establishment of creating wards for their “handpicked” candidates in the next election.

Acosta, who has unofficially declared his candidacy for the mayoral seat in the November election, also criticized the proposed map because the northernmost ward that he represents is the only one to keep a slight majority of Anglos over Latinos. The Latino population, which increased 111% between 1980 and 1990, now makes up 65% of the city’s total.

“The golden rule applies here,” Acosta said. “Those that have the gold, rule.”

The map is tentatively scheduled to go before a public hearing Feb. 3, with the first of two council votes scheduled for Feb. 18.

The most significant change in the map is in Ward 1, which was moved from its current position on the city’s west side, to its southeast corner. The ward representative, Councilwoman Patricia A. McGuigan, is prohibited by city law from seeking reelection in the ward.

Acosta, who represents Ward 3, and Councilman Daniel E. Griset, who represents Ward 5, also are barred by the city’s term-limits law from running again in their wards.

The three remaining council members in the even-numbered wards, Richards L. Norton, Miguel A. Pulido Jr. and Robert L. Richardson, do not come up for reelection until 1994, and the new map keeps them in the wards in which they reside.

But by moving Ward 1, Acosta claimed, Mayor Daniel H. Young and his political allies created a new district for the candidacy of Glenn Mondo, a city planning commissioner who narrowly lost to Norton in 1990.

“I just think it’s a fantasy of John to put that (gerrymandering) label on it,” Young said. “The map was prepared by the staff. It’s purpose was to be geographically simple and ethnically balanced, given the minority population in the city.”

Young, who plans to announce his reelection bid within the next few weeks, said it was wrong for Acosta to raise the questions “just because it does not fit John’s political interest.”

Mondo said he was pleased that there may be an opening for his candidacy.

“I am pleasantly surprised,” he said. “Did anybody contact me to talk to me about it in terms of how lines would be drawn? No.”

The map’s architect, the city manager’s executive assistant Francisco Gutierrez, said it was difficult to draw wards with an even distribution of the city’s population of 293,742.

“The central part of Santa Ana is very dense,” Gutierrez said. “Certain blocks are real dense, and if you moved a block into another ward, it really would just throw the numbers out of whack.”

While the city has been pressured by the Orange County Hispanic Committee for Fair Elections to change its election system from at-large voting to single-member district representation, Gutierrez said this plan simply addresses ward boundaries, and the election issue would have to be decided by the council.